LuxLeaks whistleblowers handed reduced sentences on appeal

A Luxembourg court yesterday (16 March) gave reduced sentences on appeal to two LuxLeaks whistleblowers convicted of leaking thousands of documents that revealed tax breaks for multinational firms.

Former PricewaterhouseCoopers employee Antoine Deltour, 31, received a six month suspended sentence with a €1,500 fine, instead of the 12-month jail term given at the original trial last June.

His colleague Raphaël Halet, 40, received a €1,000 fine instead of a nine-month prison sentence.

Both were ordered to pay a symbolic sum of €1 each to PricewaterhouseCoopers.

Investigative reporter Edouard Perrin, who used the thousands of pages of documents to produce two reports for French public television in 2012 and 2013, had his acquittal at the earlier trial confirmed.

“The only satisfying judgement would have been acquittal” for all three, Deltour told reporters after the decision.

The LuxLeaks and Panama Papers scandals got hardly any attention in Central and Eastern European countries, Ondřej Kopečný told EURACTIV.com. The tax campaigner called on Brussels to push for greater awareness of the dangers of tax evasion in the region.

His lawyer, William Bourdon, said however it was the first case of its kind.

“It’s the first time in Europe that the judge has given a legal justification to a whistleblower on the main charge that he was on trial,” Bourdon said.

“This is a very important stone that we have laid in the building of protection for whistleblowers.”

The LuxLeaks scandal erupted in 2014 and sparked a major global push against generous deals handed to multinationals, which grew even stronger with new revelations such as the Panama Papers and Football Leaks.

The blockbuster leak revealed the huge tax breaks tiny EU nation Luxembourg had offered international firms including Apple, IKEA and Pepsi, at a time when Jean-Claude Juncker, now head of the European Commission, was prime minister.

Countries that encourage tax evasion should miss out on free trade agreements and access to banking, according to economist Joseph Stiglitz who urged Europe to take the lead in fighting tax dodgers in the wake of Donald Trump’s victory in the United States. EURACTIV Germany reports.